what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Discussion of Abhidhamma and related Commentaries
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zerotime
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by zerotime »

a frequent error is thinking that most of those early schools were confronted factions or independent groups. All those schools are basically an scholar framework with the intention to understand the Historical evolution. When we talk about those schools, most times are points of views kept by groups or individuals, who frequently were sharing the same spaces even communities. Therefore, most times no groups division existed except a label.

Anyone can be aware about that point of these hologram-schools. In example, inside AN 6.46 we find a discussion between 2 groups of disciples:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

this is a famous Sutta. The two groups of disciples are named jhāyī and dhammayogā according pali names. The first were cultivators of jhanas while the second were cultivators of wisdom. They kept a discussion and use different approaches. Therefore, we could infer 2 schools from there. Although it would be an absurdity because no Buddhist school existed inside the Buddha Sangha.

In example, about the Sthavira lineage (the supposed origin of the "schools" who later would conform the Theravada) the argument of being an "school" is supported in very scarce proofs. Just there is a lost text in Pasenaci language which is mentioned in another sanskrit stuff, although in fact nobody knows exactly because this is half legend. Although there is a Tibetan monk from 1.300 ace who mention this, and then we could assume xyz in order all the pieces can fit. In short, the thread is not a supposed "group of people" named the Sthaviras but following distinctive positions in doctrinal issues

Modern scholars (at least those who are not low-cost) accept the Vinaya splits like the real points of division to establish "groups". In example we can read Noa Ronkin:
"Tradition has it that by the time the Mahayana doctrines arose, roughly in the first century BCE, there were eighteen sub-sects or schools of Sthaviras, the tradition ancestral to the Theravada, although different Buddhist sources preserve divergent lists of schools which add up to more than eighteen. The number eighteen is symbolic and has evidently become conventional in Buddhist historiography. In fact, as L.S. Cousins notes, this number is both too small and too large: on the one hand, the texts seem to struggle to identify eighteen different major schools, while, on the other hand, the likelihood is that the earliest Sakgha was only loosely organized and there must have been large numbers of independent local groupings of monks and monasteries. The ‘eighteen schools’ were indeed associated with distinct doctrinal views – often on moot Abhidhamma points – but the doctrinal opinion was unlikely to have originally caused their division. As long as distinct groups of monks adhered to essentially the same vinaya and recognized the validity of each other’s ordination lineage, movement between the groups presented no problem and there was no ground for a formal split within the Sangha. Moreover, not every school had its own distinctive textual tradition: in fact, the vinaya tradition suggests that there were roughly six distinct canonical traditions in addition to the Pali one. These are the Mahasakghika, the Vatsiputriya-Sammatiya, the Sarvastivada, the Kafyapiya, the Dharmaguptaka and the Mahifasaka."

Ealry Buddhist Metaphysics - N. Ronkin
this woman follows Lamotte and others who wrote the same things time ago. This is because the Buddhist Sangha was using the oral discussions after the Buddha. No written stuff existed. And this can be checked in the different Abhidhamma works, in where some take the form of discussions while others have a recopilation style. Because at this later time, the means were already available to create a written stuff, and the old discussion style together with the new one, both were registered. There is not "a new thing" neither those discussions belongs to fights between factions in where a pristine Buddhism was lost.

The definitive Theravada was a conclusion of a process in a community with many people, in where the knowledge was expanded from the first times. This is a natural and unavoidable thing, it doesn't contradict the Buddha teaching.

However, the narrative of "schools" also is managed by some people like an excuse to put distance with the authority of the tradition. Then, the tradition can be show like a failed device who perverted a pristine Buddhism, whatever it can be. Here is where we could find the real utility of the toy.

Some scholars works accepts that inference mechanism in the management of those schools, while others bypass this. Others wish to detect doctrinal difference to quickly create fights between them in some Vatican intrigue style.

The Buddha had different groups of disciples under different practices and approaches. After Buddha times, those approaches evolved and new labels arose for different doctrinal trends. It doesn't mean they were confronted schools who perverted some pristine Buddhism.

The Theravada school is the historical result of what many scholars named the Sthaviras. The Theravada is at the same time the original Buddhism and also the result of an evolution. Both things. It contains the original Buddhism with different approaches already existing in the same Buddha Sangha. Like we check in the linked AN 6.46. And also it contains the stuff of the following times until the Canon was finished. The Abhidhamma explanations also is an original part of all that. If the Abhidhamma is an expansion of its original approach from the Buddha times, the same could be said about any other approach or position.

The Cannon doesn't include incompatible Dhamma views, like those about a mind arising from a brain, the non existence of kamma and rebirth, the jhanas being the only door for nibbana, the gender theory and etcetera. Paradoxically, these ideas appears under the umbrella of that new label "Early Buddhist Teaching".
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zerotime
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by zerotime »

*sorry the typo error: the attributed Sthaviras language was Paiśācī not "Pasenaci"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paishachi
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by auto »

Pulsar wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 11:27 am ..
rupa and kaya difference is that the kaya is a sense organ, but rupa is a sense organ object. And you can assume that the sense organ object can be the sense organ itself. Thus, rupa can be tangible, but what you can see with the eyes might be not tangible for the kaya.
https://suttacentral.net/sn35.232/en/sujato?layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin wrote: The Buddha has an eye
Saṁvijjati kho, āvuso, bhagavato cakkhu.
with which he sees a sight.
Passati bhagavā cakkhunā rūpaṁ.
But he has no desire and greed,
Chandarāgo bhagavato natthi.
..
The Buddha has a body
Saṁvijjati kho, āvuso, bhagavato kāyo.
with which he senses touch.
Phusati bhagavā kāyena phoṭṭhabbaṁ.
You seem saying sound is not physical but the hands(kaya) are? the confusion might come because you can't touch the sound or see it like you could see the hands?
Pulsar wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 8:22 pm Buddha teaches in sutta pitaka that when there is craving
it emerges as
1. eye consciousness
, a sight which is like a reflection in a pond (it is impossible that this is solid) what appears in the eye which is a watery medium ... is a reflection of a thing seen. It is true that the eye is physical and the thing seen is physical but the reflection in the eye is not physical.
..
All of the above are events of the mind. True they are derived from physical objects.
Clap two hands which are physical, a sound emerges. that sound is not physical, it is true that if not for the hands (physical) sound will not appear.
..
  • Even as sights, tastes, emerge via sense bases, the person names these as "I see" " I hear". due to craving to bring "I" into existence
  • This event is called naming, or identification
For the Arahant there is no emergence of consciousness via sense bases. He does not crave for such, hence no need to name, no identification is pursued.
There is no arising for the Arahant.
Yet the Arahant is not blind nor deaf.
The different kinds of consciousness that appear in the puthujjana are called forms, in this instance.
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Pulsar »

When I wrote that  
  • meditation on corpses and bloated bodies are pointless,
Ceisiwr responded 
This doesn't seem right. The contemplation of corpses is to aid overcoming sensual desire and to facilitate entry into Jhāna. This can be done via looking at a dead corpse, or it can be done mentally via mental images of a corpse. 
Where in the 8-fold path does it say contemplation on corpses aid entry into jhana? Can you bring me an example from Samyutta nikaya with a parallel in Samyukta agama that says so?
Regards :candle:
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Joe.c »

Pulsar wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 5:10 pm When I wrote that  
  • meditation on corpses and bloated bodies are pointless.
    Where in the 8-fold path does it say contemplation on corpses aid entry into jhana? Can you bring me an example from Samyutta nikaya with a parallel in Samyukta agama that says so?
    Regards :candle:
I can't believe i sort of agree with Ceisiwr.

This is another ignorance post that I have seen by this person. Blindly follow without proper investigation or without direct own experience/wisdom will lead to nowhere.

Have this person see or investigate SN 46.60 or MN 13 or SN 54.9 or other Sutta or Vinaya? I bet not. Even in vinaya there is asubha explanation.

MN 13:
...Furthermore, suppose that you were to see that same sister as a corpse discarded in a charnel ground. And she had been dead for one, two, or three days, bloated, livid, and festering...
One needs to enter the stream first to know. Otherwise it is just pure speculation from no wisdom to limited wisdom. When mind is block by panca nivarana, there won't be any wise wisdom to arise.

The reflecting of corpse will not be pointless. Buddha has mentioned it in many Sutta. But not everyone needs to do it because it will depend on your personality.

Finally, the N8FP is vast and wide, not narrow. But one needs to enter the door first, otherwise no meaning.
May you be relax, happy, comfortable and free of dukkhas from hearing true dhamma.
May you gain unshakable confidence in Buddha, Dhamma and (Ariya) Sangha.
Learn about Buddha/Dhamma Characters.
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Pulsar »

“Mendicants, when the perception of a split open corpse is developed and cultivated it’s very fruitful and beneficial.”
writes SN 46.60.
Joe.c brought this into the discussion, to show that meditation on rotting corpses is a wonderful thing.
I had wanted to focus on this section in Bojjhanga Samyutta (in my Jhana thread, but now is a better opportunity) to show how Pali compilers understood the profound Dhamma via the lens of Abhidhamma.
For abhidhamma rupa of nama-rupa or of the aggregates was physical, for Buddha it was a world phenomenon, as I discussed earlier on this thread.
It is not only SN 46.60,but Pali garnered almost twenty different suttas based on a single Samyukta agama sutta SA 747.
  • Not one sentence in the agama version refers to a split open corpse.
The list of newly generated 21 suttas, began with "The worm Infested" "The Livid" "Split open corpse" "The Bloated" etc. Shocking, 
because this particular Samyutta is on "Awakening Factors" which are listed as
  • Mindfulness, Dhamma investigation, Energy,  Rapture, Tranquility, Concentration, Equanimity.
Imagine the sight of a "A worm infested body" or "a corpse cut open" bringing Rapture, tranquility and Equanimity. Vibajjavadin Abhidhamma modified the original formula of DO. This allowed the tradition to come up with these strange meditations.

Excerpt from SA 747 reads  
The sutras are as above, such as the thought of impermanence, the thought of impermanent suffering, the thought of suffering without self, the thought of watching food, the thought of unhappiness in all the worlds, the thought of completion, the thought of severance, the thought of desirelessness, the thought of extinction, the thought of suffering, the thought of impurity, the thought of bruises, the thought of pus, the thought of fat, the thought of bad food, the thought of blood, the thought of separation, the thought of bone, and the thought of emptiness.
The metaphors used in the original version were clearly misunderstood by compilers influenced by abhidhamma. Bloated thoughts are possible due to unsavoury contact SN 12.62, but not bloated bodies.
AN 3.128 refers to how "one who is tainted by stench or ill will thinks"
Excerpt "flies, meaning, bad thoughts will pursue and attack one who has polluted himself by a stench" Stench here means ill will.
The thought world of Buddha "stinking thoughts" "pus filled thoughs" "bloody thoughts" "brittle thoughts" become a world of "worm infested bodies" or "corpses secreting pus", clearly original intention of the sutta is "lost in translation"
Thanks dear Joe.c for SN 54.9 At Vesali, another ideal sutta to show why
one must not meditate on rotting corpses, but later, when I have the time.
Regards  :candle:
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Coëmgenu »

The translation of SĀ 747 is bizarre and incorrect. I can only assume a free Internet-based computer translation service is responsible for it, either Google Translate or DeepL.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Pulsar »

Coemgenu wrote
The translation of SĀ 747 is bizarre and incorrect.
So please give us the translation that is not bizarre and not incorrect.
I remember once you translated "earth kasina" in an agama sutta, as earth element. I thought that was bizarre and incorrect. Where does SA 747 say, "corpse split open?" "Worm infested body?" "The bloated body?"
Enlighten me.
Regards :candle:
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Coëmgenu »

Pulsar wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 1:01 amI remember once you translated "earth kasina" in an agama sutta, as earth element.
You remember incorrectly. I can give a better translation in a while. I don't have time presently.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
Pulsar
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Pulsar »

Coemgenu wrote
I can give a better translation in a while. I don't have time presently.
I am waiting for the correct translation of both suttas, SA 747 preferably.
With love :candle:
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Joe.c »

Pulsar wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:38 pm I had wanted to focus on this section in Bojjhanga Samyutta (in my Jhana thread, but now is a better opportunity) to show how Pali compilers understood the profound Dhamma via the lens of Abhidhamma.
When one can't show anything suddenly it is said from Abhidhamma. LOL 😂

While I haven't even quote a single thing from Abhidhamma. Because i know and see Sutta as the guide for ending of Dukkha.

But this person just try to reduce the sutta. This is one of DN 29 warning from Buddha that said one will remove certain things to make it perfect. Buddha said in DN 29:
Seeing but one doesn't see
For abhidhamma rupa of nama-rupa or of the aggregates was physical, for Buddha it was a world phenomenon, as I discussed earlier on this thread.
Wow... Look like this person has completed the 7 steps (samma sati) and reach 8 steps of samma samadhi in N8FP. Fyi, Because fully understanding Nama Rupa need samma samadhi.

Maybe we should ask this person more questions? Has this person attained the right view? Has this person personally seen the ariya and associate with the ariya? Has this person perfected the morality that is loved by other ariya that lead to samadhi? Has this person transcends the sensual pleasure/desire (kama sanna) and switch to Rupa Sanna? Has this person fully understood reach the freedom?

If all these questions are yes, then we should congratulate this person hence this person is worthy of salutation :namaste: ?

If not, alas there is still a long way to go to reach the ending of dukkha. The first step is samma ditthi.
It is not only SN 46.60,but Pali garnered almost twenty different suttas based on a single Samyukta agama sutta SA 747.
  • Not one sentence in the agama version refers to a split open corpse.
The list of newly generated 21 suttas, began with "The worm Infested" "The Livid" "Split open corpse" "The Bloated" etc. Shocking, 
because this particular Samyutta is on "Awakening Factors" which are listed as
  • Mindfulness, Dhamma investigation, Energy,  Rapture, Tranquility, Concentration, Equanimity.
Imagine the sight of a "A worm infested body" or "a corpse cut open" bringing Rapture, tranquility and Equanimity. Vibajjavadin Abhidhamma modified the original formula of DO. This allowed the tradition to come up with these strange meditations.
Did this person know that Maha Moggallana practice was from asubha as well? Regarding other Agamas, i will provide the quote later. I'm in process of analyzing all agamas.

I bet i will find asubha in there. Because even Vinaya contain asubha practice. Asubha is needed especially for one who has strong lust desire. Otherwise one can't transcend the sensual pleasure/desire and reach supramundane and maintain it.
Excerpt from SA 747 reads  
The sutras are as above, such as the thought of impermanence, the thought of impermanent suffering, the thought of suffering without self, the thought of watching food, the thought of unhappiness in all the worlds, the thought of completion, the thought of severance, the thought of desirelessness, the thought of extinction, the thought of suffering, the thought of impurity, the thought of bruises, the thought of pus, the thought of fat, the thought of bad food, the thought of blood, the thought of separation, the thought of bone, and the thought of emptiness.
The metaphors used in the original version were clearly misunderstood by compilers influenced by abhidhamma. Bloated thoughts are possible due to unsavoury contact SN 12.62, but not bloated bodies.
AN 3.128 refers to how "one who is tainted by stench or ill will thinks"
Excerpt "flies, meaning, bad thoughts will pursue and attack one who has polluted himself by a stench" Stench here means ill will.
The thought world of Buddha "stinking thoughts" "pus filled thoughs" "bloody thoughts" "brittle thoughts" become a world of "worm infested bodies" or "corpses secreting pus", clearly original intention of the sutta is "lost in translation"
Wow... Another reinterpretation of sutta. 😂
Thanks dear Joe.c for SN 54.9 At Vesali, another ideal sutta to show why
one must not meditate on rotting corpses, but later, when I have the time.
Regards  :candle:
Looks like it is beyond hope. Can't help for now. Good luck hopefully this person associate with good person especially ariya. It is for his own good presently and future. Hopefully this person has an open mind to continue to hear the true dhamma.

Best of luck.
May you be relax, happy, comfortable and free of dukkhas from hearing true dhamma.
May you gain unshakable confidence in Buddha, Dhamma and (Ariya) Sangha.
Learn about Buddha/Dhamma Characters.
Pulsar
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Pulsar »

Asubha! Asubha! Asubha! Wilt thou leads me towards Nibbana? if I am not smart enough to understand the context in which the teacher used the word impure/asubha.
  • Take SN 54.9, Joe's selection, to prove that meditating on rotting bodies split open, is an essential feature of Buddhist meditation.
Asubha can mean unpleasant, ugly, threatening, sinister.
However when these words are applied to a physical body, it is one messy thing, cut up corpses maybe. 
But applied to thoughts,
it will mean all thoughts that hinder spiritual progress, sleazy thoughts, ugly thoughts, festering thoughts, monstrous thoughts, hateful thoughts and bloody thoughts. In other words all hindrances!
Sutta in brief, simplified:
At Vesali Blessed One reportedly gave a talk on Asubha/impurities.
Thereafter he went into seclusion for half a month.
Wordly monks in the congregation (not the smart noble ones)thought, Buddha was referring to rotting corpses, bodies secreting pus etc.
Hence they meditated on rotting flesh, and got unsettled, extremely disgusted.
They took the knife.
Buddha returns and finds the monks diminished in number and makes enquiries, and he is told of what happened.  (Buddha can usually read other's minds, but not in this instance)
Sutta ends with Buddha advising monks to resort to Anapanasati.
Dear Joe.c: Why didn't Buddha ask rest of the monks to carry on meditating on rotting corpses? if asubha meditation of the kind you envision, is fruitful. 
Let us find out what Lawrence Kanthipola Mills thought of "At Vesali '' embedded within Anapanasati Samyutta. He was a well respected Buddhist scholar, in case Joe.C has never heard of him.
Mills
  •  "The case of the Murdered Monks"
 https://buddhistuniversity.net/content/ ... s-laurence
  • When reviewed like this, the whole story appears a piece of improbable fiction, possibly a very distorted account of something which actually did take place. It is strange that a story like this, which does no credit to the Buddha, but quite the opposite, was permitted to remain in the Vinaya.
Regards :candle:
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Ceisiwr »

Pulsar wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 5:10 pm
Where in the 8-fold path does it say contemplation on corpses aid entry into jhana?
Where in the 8-fold path does it discuss any kind of meditation? It doesn't, because that isn't what the NEFP is about. It's about what needs to be done and what outcomes are to be aimed for.
Can you bring me an example from Samyutta nikaya with a parallel in Samyukta agama that says so?
SN 46.57 discusses mediation on a skeleton in combination with the awakening factors. It's parallel is SA 747, but I don't see it talking about skeletons there. One place where we do see corpse meditation discussed is in MN 10. We also find this in the Sarvāstivādin and Mahāsāṃghika versions. Regardless of if the sutta has been edited to include these meditations or not, the fact that they are there in 3 different tradition shows that meditation upon corpses in varying degrees of decay was practiced by Buddhists since the earliest of times. The Theravādin tradition has it that they can lead to Jhāna and full awakening. The Sarvāstivādins agreed. From what I can tell they placed more emphasis on foulness as a meditation practice than Theravāda does, where the Elders had a stronger preference for Kasiṇa meditation. Still there are some lovely stories of monks awakening in the Visuddhimagga based on foulness meditation. For example
Like the Elder Mahá Tissa who dwelt at Cetiyapabbata.
55. It seems that as the elder was on his way from Cetiyapabbata to Anurádhapura for alms, a certain daughter-in-law of a clan, who had quarrelled with her husband and had set out early from Anurádhapura all dressed up and tricked out like a celestial nymph to go to her relatives’ home, saw him on the road, and being lowminded, [21] she laughed a loud laugh. [Wondering] “What is that?” the elder looked up and finding in the bones of her teeth the perception of foulness (ugliness), he reached Arahantship.15 Hence it was said:

“He saw the bones that were her teeth,
And kept in mind his first perception;
And standing on that very spot
The elder became an Arahant.”

But her husband, who was going after her, saw the elder and asked, “Venerable sir, did you by any chance see a woman?” The elder told him:

“Whether it was a man or woman
That went by I noticed not,
But only that on this high road
There goes a group of bones."
Visuddhimagga - CHAPTER I Description of Virtue

The above is also similar to how repulsiveness is said to work in the Sarvāstivādin literature, for those who have mastered it. The ability to control one's perception at will. This in turn matches what we find in the suttas

"If he wishes: ‘May I dwell perceiving the repulsive in the unrepulsive,’ he dwells perceiving the repulsive therein. If he wishes: ‘May I dwell perceiving the unrepulsive in the repulsive,’ he dwells perceiving the unrepulsive therein. If he wishes: ‘May I dwell perceiving the repulsive in the unrepulsive and in the repulsive,’ he dwells perceiving the repulsive therein. If he wishes: ‘May I dwell perceiving the unrepulsive in the repulsive and in the unrepulsive,’ he dwells perceiving the unrepulsive therein. If he wishes: ‘Avoiding both the unrepulsive and the repulsive, may I dwell equanimously, mindful and clearly comprehending,’ then he dwells therein equanimously, mindful and clearly comprehending."

I think you should think again regarding the utility of corpse meditation.
Last edited by Ceisiwr on Thu May 19, 2022 8:53 pm, edited 3 times in total.
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Ceisiwr »

Pulsar wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 7:41 pm But applied to thoughts,
it will mean all thoughts that hinder spiritual progress, sleazy thoughts, ugly thoughts, festering thoughts, monstrous thoughts, hateful thoughts and bloody thoughts. In other words all hindrances!
We already have a word for that. It's not asubha. Those are akusalā dhammā.
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Re: what is difference between suttas and Abhidamma

Post by Pulsar »

Ceisiwr wrote
Where in the 8-fold path does it discuss any kind of meditation? It doesn't, because that isn't what the NEFP is about. It's about what needs to be done and what outcomes are to be aimed for.
Last I checked
  • Samma sati and Samma samadhi fall under Samadhi
of the 8-fold path. 8 fold path has 3 aggregates, Sila, Samadhi and Panna. SN 47.42 on Origination explains the sort of meditation required to bring DO to a halt. SN 47.42 does not mention corpses, and festering bodies, and does not expect the aspirant to meditate on earth, air, fire and water, but just the images, sounds, tastes, etc derived from those. The point of 8-fold path is to bring mental or emotional suffering to an end.
I have not seen this kind of meditation discussed in Abhidhamma.
And it is impossible the methods of meditation discussed under abhidhamma will fit the meditation proposed by the 8-fold path.
In abhidhamma rupa of Nama-rupa is described as a physical factor, whereas in the 8-fold path designed to bring Dependent origination to a halt, Buddha defines rupa of Nama-rupa as a world phenomenon. I have already introduced a sutta from Samyutta Nikaya to support this, so I feel there is no need to repeat this. You can scroll back and check.
With love :candle:
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